Alfred Taban

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On December 15 last year, fighting that broke out between supporters of South Sudan's President Salva Kiir and Riek Machar--who had been vice president until Kiir fired the entire Cabinet--escalated into a civil war that has increased pressure on an already fragile independent press.

Police
arbitrarily arrested Michael Koma, the managing editor of South Sudan's daily Juba
Monitor, on May 2 and detained him for four days following the publication
of an article critical of the deputy security minister. A veteran journalist,
Koma has experienced firsthand the poor state of press freedom within Africa's
newest country. CPJ spoke with him briefly this week.

A day before U.S.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited South Sudan this month, McClatchy correspondent Alan Boswell reported
that President Salva Kiir had finally acknowledged his government's support for
a Nuba Mountains-based group that had been skirmishing with Sudanese forces. In
a letter to his U.S. counterpart, the story said, Kiir apologized for his previous
denials, which came in the face of U.S. intelligence to the contrary. The
story, which exposed an important element in the tense relations between the
two once-joined nations, put Boswell in the cross-hairs.